You don't see what's actually there, even with no artificial augmentation whatsoever. Your brain does a vast amount of subconscious processing of the light that comes to your eyes so that you can see all those three dimensional things.

Check out some funky optical illusions.

And use anacron or cron to run it

!/bin/sh
# Time Machine equivalent for Linux. This backs up the local root filesystem.

# Set variables
LABEL=HardDriveLabel
MOUNT=/media/${LABEL}
BKPDIR=${MOUNT}/backup/laptop
CURRENT=${BKPDIR}/current
DEVICE=/dev/disk/by-label/${LABEL}
EXCLUDES=${BKPDIR}/excludes.txt
LOG=${BKPDIR}/rsync.log
NEWDIR=${BKPDIR}/$(date "+%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S")
OPTS="-aqx"
UMOUNT=

SOURCES=/

die () {
    # If we mounted the disk, unmount it again
    if [ ${UMOUNT} ] ; then
        pumount ${DEVICE}
    fi
    exit $1
}

# Is the backup disk plugged in
if [ ! -e ${DEVICE} ]; then
    exit 1
fi

# Is the backup disk mounted
if ! grep -q ${MOUNT} /proc/mounts ; then
    pmount ${DEVICE} ${LABEL}
    UMOUNT=1
    # Give the disk time to sort itself out
    sleep 3
fi

if ! grep -q ${MOUNT} /proc/mounts ; then
    # Still not mounted, give up.
    die 1
fi

# Make sure the backup directory is there
mkdir -p ${BKPDIR}

if [ ! -d ${BKPDIR} ] ; then
    # mkdir failed, give up
    die 1
fi

# Set extra options
if [ -f ${EXCLUDES} ] ; then
    OPTS="${OPTS} --exclude-from=${EXCLUDES}"
fi

if [ -h ${CURRENT} ] ; then
    OPTS="${OPTS} --link-dest=${CURRENT}"
fi

if [ ${LOG} ] ; then
    OPTS="${OPTS} --log-file=${LOG}"
fi

# Perform the backup
rsync ${OPTS} ${SOURCES} ${NEWDIR}

# Did we create a new backup
if [ ! -d ${NEWDIR} ] ; then
    die 1
fi

# Now update the current soft link
if [ -h ${CURRENT} ] ; then
    rm -f ${CURRENT}
fi
ln -s ${NEWDIR} ${CURRENT}

die $?

As funny as this mysticism clearly sounds to some, there are theories that some human memories are stored, "in the cloud" - when they are stored socially.

I have read ( but can't now find the reference :-( ) studies where groups of people have been asked to remember details from long stories, complex scenes, collections of objects etc.

One person will be the subject of the studies, the others will be actors. The actors 'remember' details that were definitely false - a red ball being blue for example, and reports it as such in front of the subject. The subject will then report remembering the same false memory - and honestly believe it. He can probably visualise the blue ball in his mind.

When you consider how many conversations you have with other people during the day, how much of that is creating, reinforcing and editing memories for you?

Good points

So they have the nucleic DNA - what about DNS from other intra-cellular bodies such as mitochondria? What about the epi-genetic effects of bringing a mammoth fetus to term inside another species? (Presumably an elephant.)

I think what they will end up with is an approximation of a mammoth, not an true instance of the species that became extinct 10,000 years ago.

The other thing you can do is boycott all Apple products and encourage everyone you know to do the same. And do the same for any other company that tries to control the market - and where your dollar goes - using the same broken patent system.

Ultimately all large companies make their decision based on the balance sheet, and Apple's products are discretionary purchasing. If people can be made to care about the company's behaviour it will affect whether or not they buy their product or a competitors.

Fring [ http://www.fring.com/ ] looks interesting, although it only works on mobile platforms right now.

KDE seems to suffer terribly from re-writer's disease. They'll write a good piece of software, possibly lacking a few features and a bit buggy in places. Rather than polish it and fill in the gaps, they nearly always decider to write something Newer and Better.

Almost invariably the new application won't be the latter, because immature software tends to lack a few features and be a bit buggy in places.

I still prefer KDE to Gnome, and Kubuntu is my main desktop, but I really wish the developers would settle down and get a bit less skittish.

Parent poster doesn't have a girlfriend or he would know there is no such thing as free sex.

I recently bought a Dell Zino HD from Dell NZ. I did it over the phone, so I could ask for the Windows licence to be refunded - there is now way to do it on the website of course.

The first operator didn't really know how to handle my request and asked if they could call back. When I did get called back I was offered a discount to the value of the Windows licence. So presumably Dell ended up paying Microsoft for a licence on my purchase anyway.

I'm guessing that Microsoft have insured themselves in the agreements with the system builders and distributors in this way. I don't know how you would go about finding out what the content of those agreements really is though.

Anecdotal evidence is not proof of a rule. If you kick a dog it might run or it might turn and bite you.

If you can't convince your boss to spend the time and money to write tests for old working code, just start writing tests for any new code you write.

When you fix a bug, write a test for it.

When you add a feature write a test suite for it.

Your tests will also incidentally test old code near the new code, and your coverage will increase surprisingly quickly.

I had a team of 6 developers doing this over ~400,000 LOC over the course of about 18 months and got 60% code coverage over the product.

As an amateur filmmaker who can't afford professional prices, this is EXACTLY what I want to send video to the director's monitor.